93 
on the Nature of certain Bodies. 
There was no proof then, that the muriatic acid had been 
decompounded in these experiments ; and there was every 
reason to consider it as containing in its common aeriform 
state, at least one third of its weight of water ; and this con- 
clusion we shall find warranted by facts, which are imme- 
diately to follow. 
I now made a number of experiments, with the hopes of 
obtaining the muriatic acid free from water. 
I first heated to whiteness, in a well luted porcelain retort, a 
mixture of dry sulphate of iron, and muriate of lime which had 
been previously ignited ; but a few cubic inches of gas only, were 
obtained, though the mixture was in the quantity of several 
ounces; and this gas contained sulphureous acid. I heated dry 
muriate of lime, mixed both with phosphoric glass and dry bo- 
racic acid, in tubes of porcelain, and of iron, and employed the 
blast of an excellent forge ; but by neither of these methods 
was any gas obtained, though when a little moisture was 
added to the mixtures, muriatic acid was develloped in such 
quantities, as almost to produce explosions. 
The fuming muriate of tin, the liquor of Libavius, is known 
to contain dry muriatic acid. I attempted to separate the acid 
from this substance, by distilling it with sulphur and with 
phosphorus ; but without success. I obtained only triple com- 
pounds, in physical characters, something like the solutions of 
phosphorus, and sulphur in oil, which were non-conductors of 
electricity, which did not redden dry litmus paper, and which 
evolved muriatic acid gas with great violence, heat, and ebul- 
lition on the contact of water. 
I distilled mixtures of corrosive sublimate and sulphur, 
and of calomel and sulphur ; when these were used in their 
